Likelihood to Recommend

Adobe Business Catalyst

The service provision is good the accounts customer service is poor so I would struggle to give BC a better than average review, if only they could offer customers a better accounts service then the value would be much higher.

Hippo CMS

The system is ideal if you want to reuse content easily. The "document type" logic, which is not page oriented, but content oriented is a clever and efficient way to build up "content bricks". This guarantees an ideal way to use the same content in different templates or even channels. It can also help to feed some mobile-apps as it is planned in our future online strategy

Standard reports

Custom reports

API

Role-based workflow & approvals

Adobe Business Catalyst

7.0

Hippo CMS

—

Customizability

Adobe Business Catalyst

6.0

Hippo CMS

—

Integration with Salesforce.com

Adobe Business Catalyst

5.5

Hippo CMS

—

Pros

Analytics: I am able to see on multiple levels traffic, clicks, and most importantly search terms for improving SEO. The reports are easy to generate as well as read, especially for small inexperienced business owners.

Marketing: When using the BC platform businesses are able to link up easily with Adobe Marketing to automatically send out emails and newsletters. Its a very smooth and painless process.

Online Editing: This is probably the best part of BC. Once a design is approved and launched on the platform, my clients do not have to contact me for small content updates. This frees me up as a small business owner to concentrate on design, new clients, and larger projects for existing clients.

High scalability and reuse of standard information architecture, templates and features in all countries: Every country will have his own channel, usually multi-language oriented. Product information will be very happy and reuse of content mandatory. The system therefore has to be very robust and scalable.

Good usability for back-end users: As more than hundred users will use the system on a daily basis, training had to be as minimal as possible. The backend has to be self-explanatory by itself. Hippo goes this way. If you can use a tree structure and a basic RTEditor, you are ready to use Hippo.

State of the art targeting tool: In order to address segmentation of users and to go beyond a simple layout relaunch, our Marketing Department needed a tool which can make use of Personas and build up complex dynamic criterias. Real time analysis of the users behaviors will provide insights and allow the company to build up effective CRM strategies.

Cons

Multi Client Management: The dashboard for managing multiple clients as a reseller is a little difficult to get to. There is also no very easy way for me to manage multiple clients at once. I have to log into and out of individual client accounts to do billing or management.

Lack of Server support: There are certain server protocols and languages that are not supported using BC. For example I cannot build a custom php database and upload to BC. I am required to use their tools.

Likelihood to Renew

Adobe Business Catalyst9.4

Based on 10 answers

The simplicity of this platform is the main reason. BC is incredibly easy for first time users and very streamlined for experienced users. I also look at the integration with other Adobe products in my company. Being able to stay completely in one piece of software (Muse or Dreamweaver) for a full design and publish make much better use of my time.

So far, Hippo is our ideal tool given its use of open standards which helps us to have a clear overview of what's coming next in the future Hippo releases. We are very confident in the future-readiness of the product

Usability

Adobe Business Catalyst9.7

Based on 4 answers

Overall it is a "plug and play" interface. The majority of the work is done in other software interfaces. Managing billing, user roles and custom reports are all that you need to manage in the actual BC user interface. For my business this is an incredible benefit as I have to leave my preferred software less.

Support

Adobe Business Catalyst8.6

Based on 5 answers

I have used Adobe support for many of their products. I find that they are quick to respond and present a wide variety of support platforms from forums to online chat. Depending on the nature of the issue I am usually able to get resolution within 24 to 48 hours. With more complex issues I have never had a problem with Adobe dropping the ball.

Alternatives Considered

Adobe Business Catalyst has Web Apps which makes all the difference between them and competitors. Without that, BC would be behind many of the other CMS systems out there. Being a hosted system without any maintenance needs also puts it ahead of others. LightCMS is easier for clients to use, but not as customization and Evoq or DNN is over complex but a stronger platform..

Magnolia, Typo3, Drupal, Hybris, Intershop, RBS Change, Sitefinity, Liferay, Crownpeak, Ektron, EzPublish, Coremedia, Pironet, ModX,...We built up a requirement sheet and banished from the selection all CMS wich would not fullfill more than 2 "mandatory" features. Although Hippo did not perfom well in the collaborative features, its core features were going exactly toward our needs. Major focus was mutli-level architecture, scalability, native multi-languages capabilities and excellent roadmap for future releases. We needed a very active development schedule, especially in the field of targeting and real time analysis of users behaviors

As we can use one single instance of Hippo CMS to feed 50 different countries websites and more to come (extranets, special user restricted areas, B2B sites, etc), we can easily deploy it and maintenance costs are marginal now compared to the previous situation (different CMS in every country with local hosting, maintenance, etc).

As Hippo is future ready, countries are already setting up more complex and efficient digital campaigns. This was impossible before as our systems could not address these needs.